Polkadot ($DOT), Kusama ($KSM), and Cardano ($ADA) Lead the Crypto Development Race, Data Shows

The “blockchain of blockchains” Polkadot ($DOT) is currently the leading cryptocurrency network by development activity, and it’s followed by Kusama ($KSM), a public pre-production environment for it, and by smart contract platform Cardano ($ADA).

That’s according to data from on-chain analytics firm Santiment, Polkadot has managed to maintain its position as the leading cryptocurrency in terms of development activity, with Kusama and Cardano making the top three.

The term “development activity” refers to the amount of work completed by a cryptocurrency project’s developers on the project’s public GitHub repositories within the past 30 days.

Unlike other measures, Santiment’s metric focuses on “events” rather than the total number of commits. Events encompass various actions taken on GitHub repositories, such as pushing a commit, forking a repository, or creating an issue.

This approach provides a more accurate representation of the developers’ actual work, as it prevents duplication or inaccuracies that may occur when measuring development activity solely by commits.

For instance, forking creates a duplicate copy of a repository, including all previous commits. By counting the forking action as a single event, Santiment avoids falsely attributing older commits to new developers.

According to Santiment, Polkadot and Kusama boast a significant lead over other cryptocurrencies in development activity, with values of 486 for both coins. Meanwhile, Hedera ($HBAR) came in fourth place and Chainlink ($LINK) in fifth place.

Over the past few years, both DOT and KSM have demonstrated steady growth in development activity, while ADA has remained relatively stable, albeit at high values.

Development activity is an important indicator of developers’ commitment to a project, and while it is not the only metric, a high level of activity can be a positive sign that a coin is not merely an exit scam.